Bovey glad of Jongwe for match-turning knock of 60

Important knock - Chris Bradley

BOVEY Tracey were made to work every inch of the way for a two-wicket win over Paignton at Queens Park.

Former Devon pair Chris Bradley (4-38) and Ryan Bougourd (2-36) were Bovey’s dangermen with the ball as Paignton were bowled out for 176.

Paignton opener Chris Kelmere, who suffered a fractured foot in the warm-up and was later taken to hospital, went in the first over to Hugo Whitlock.

Tristan Coetzee (36) and skipper Richard Ashworth (29) added 61 for the second wicket, but fell at 66 and 83 respectively as Paignton wobbled.

Noah Wright was in and out for 18, which left Dan Wolf (29) to tackle the bowling for a while.

Once Bradley started twirling away wickets fell regularly, although Ollie Higgs (16) and Harry Ward (10) did delay the inevitable for a while.

As run chases go it might have been a formality, helped by Paignton losing tidy spinner Kelmere to the casualty department.

All of the top five got starts, but Wolf, Rob Shergold and Steve George (3-26) kept chipping away at the middle order.

Luke Zongwe was the key man for Bovey – going in at 51 for three and coming out at 164 for eight.

Zongwe made 60 and along the way put on 33 with Peter Bradley (21), a further 3 with Luke Hammett (12) and 29 with former Devon captain Bradley.

Bradley was unbeaten on 20 when Bovey flopped over the line in the 49th over.

Bovey captain Peter Bradley said he shouldn’t complain after a fifth straight win, but he wasn’t happy with every aspect of his side’s performance.

“It was another scrap and another performance below where we should and could be,” said Bradley.

“We have made winning a habit, which is brilliant, but this division is strong and everyone is beating everyone.

“I can't see two teams who should go down, let alone win the league.”

Bradley said he is niggled by areas that need improving on.

“We have let teams get on top of us early and lost wicket at regular intervals,” he said. “We need to keep improving

“On a plus side Luke batted beautiful until leaving a straight one, with 10 runs required.

“Chris bowled, fielded and batted with the experience that we needed. Toby Codd and Bougourd are bowling very well together in the middle.”

Paignton are fourth in the table but closer to the bottom two than the top two in point terms.

Skipper Ashworth was upbeat after the game, but admits there is one issue that needs resolving.

“We really need to start scoring some more runs,” said Ashworth.

“We were definitely 20-30 runs short of a competitive total.

“We got off to a great start but just faded in the middle overs. They have a very good bowling attack and made it difficult for us to rotate the strike.

“In the field I thought we were excellent trying to defend a small target.

“We didn’t give much away and it took a very good innings from their Jongwe to get them up to our score.”